Tips for your Social Media Marketing Budget and Strategy

You can’t spend more than you actually have. This “rule” is true for big and small companies alike. What the budget is there for, in any way, is to let you keep an eye on how much you spend and not overstretch yourself or your company.

Some of that budget will, of course, have to go for social media. The question is where exactly to put all that money into? Take a look at these 4 key things you need to consider when planning your social media budget.

What are Your Goals?

Prior to making any decision involving money, you need to define your goals. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you have an idea how you are going to measure success? Do you already have a clear picture of your audience?

Answering these questions is free of cost, luckily, but answering them wrongly can be a big stumbling block for the future, so think wisely on this one.

What Social Media Platforms will You Use?

In time, you will get a good feel as to what social media platforms work the best for your business, but in the meantime, you can try a few to see if they lead customers your way.

There are so many social media platforms out there that trying to be on all of them at once is not only counterproductive, but is also almost impossible to accomplish.

What will Your Content be?

People like visuals, so give it to them. Make sure your budget covers plenty of ways to access and even produce a variety of content, especially photos and videos.

Speaking of the latter two, you also need to answer the following questions:

Stock or custom images?

Are you ready to produce videos?

Analyze

Without analytics, you won’t have a clue if your social media efforts are showing tangible results or not. If you’re a startup or a small, local company, you can make use of free software to give you a good idea about all of this. However, don’t rely on free programs as your business grows. That’s when it’s time to open your pockets a little.

Before we end, there’s one more thing that you need to consider regarding your SMM strategy and that is:

Is Facebook Enough for Your Social Media Marketing?

A decade ago, Facebook was just an online college repository. Today, it is the leading social media site and a huge content and advertising platform with one billion users accessing the site in a single day. Amazing and unbelievable as it sounds, 1 in 7 people accessed Facebook on Monday, September 24, 2015.

It’s no longer a question whether your business should be on Facebook; after all it’s used by everyone from automotive dealerships, fashion boutiques, hairstylists, and tattoo artists to dentists. The question is actually, is Facebook enough for your social media marketing?

All of this because:

Users Want More

No matter how much you give them (and let’s face it, FB has given users a lot so far), they always want more.

More security. More privacy. More content. More everything. Above all – more control. And users are not shy to try something new, something that is not made by Mark Zuckerberg.

Thus, they turn to Twitter, Google +, Instagram and other social media sites.

The Game has Changed

The social media game never stands still. It can only move faster, in fact. Once upon a time, there was MySpace, but today nobody thinks it’s even relevant. Don’t be surprised if Facebook reaches the same fate one day.

Already, users are showing their fickle nature. According to a recent research by Pew Research Center, almost 50% of the surveyed Facebook users said they considered quitting it for something else.

Remember those billion users from Monday? The same research also says that 61% of Facebook users have taken a hiatus from the site for a month or longer. That’s a month of not even logging in, let alone posting, liking or sharing content.

So what exactly has changed? Three things in fact:

Users want more privacy.

If there is one thing users have a grudge with Facebook about, it’s how it handles their privacy. In fact, according to the survey above, just about 10% of the surveyed said they trust Facebook “a lot”.

Organic reach is less important

Facebook organic reach went down from 16% in February 2012 to just 6.5% in March 2014. Staying in the consumers’ eyesight’s is always one of the primary goals for brands, but now they find it more and more difficult to do that. Thus, you have more ads on Facebook.

Controlling the content

Users want to control the content, not to be fed it. Facebook doesn’t seem to be able to follow this concept. However, others do. LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest… they all let you control the content.

Bottom line is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Even if that basket is Facebook. You’ll just have too many eggs and won’t be able to connect with your customers as well as you need to.